


Bloodbond

by spiderfire



Category: The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. Le Guin
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Original Mythology, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-15 06:42:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13025433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spiderfire/pseuds/spiderfire
Summary: I asked the person on my left, “Are your keystones always set in red cement?”The man answers, “Very-long-ago a keystone was always set in with a mortar of ground bones mixed with blood.  Human bones, human blood.  Without the bloodbond the arch would fall, you see."





	1. Very-long-ago

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jarofactonbell](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jarofactonbell/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Karth of the Ash People and Rastle of the People of Green Mountain, learn of a kind of mud that hardens into stone.

Many years ago, a river flowed through a mountainous land. During the warm months, the water tumbled downwards, gaining momentum, joining forces with other streams, until it was a thunderous torrent, treacherous and impassable. In the coldness of winter, the headwaters froze and the river became calm. For a time each year, fords appeared and the river could be crossed. 

On the sunset bank of the river lived the Ash People. The Ash People made cloth and rope from the stringy fibers of the hathem vine, they dried the bitter berries of the atherem bush to eat during the long winters, and they cut the towering rockwood trees to fashion shelters from its trunk. What the Ash People were best known for was a closely held secret. The Ash People knew how to turn the dense, light colored wood of the rockwood tree into black chunks, charcoal, that burned with an unparalleled blue-hot heat. 

On the sunrise side of the river lived the People of Green Mountain. From the surface, Green Mountain looked like any other mountain. It was covered in a dense growth of the fragrant mist-bush. Mist-bush smelled pleasant, and its characteristic small whitish leaves made it look like the mountain was covered in dew, but it produced no edible fruits, it inhibited the growth of other plants in the same soil, and it produced little heat when burned. For all that the surface of Green Mountain was useless, inside Green Mountain there was treasure. Veins of blue-green ore, as thick as a man’s arm, were shot through the rock. The ore, when harvested, could be heated, driving waters and gasses from its essence, leaving behind a gold-brown malleable metal that could be shaped into jewelry or vessels, or combined with tin to make an alloy that was hard enough to hold an edge. 

When the coldest of months tamed the raging torrents of the river, the Ash People and the People of Green River ventured into each other’s territory, each carrying the goods they spent the warm months crafting. To the Ash People, the pounded copper vessels and the bronze cutting edges created by the People of Green Mountain made it possible for them harvest the hathem vines, dry the atherem berries and cut the rockwood trees. To the People of Green Mountain, the clothing they wore was fashioned from the Ash People’s cloth, the winter food they ate was augmented by the atherem berries and the smelting of the green ore was not possible without the Ash People’s charcoal. 

For many years, the Ash People and the People of Green Mountain lived side by side, separated by the raging river, and they thrived. Their children grew more numerous and they ventured out into the world, bringing trade goods to other peoples. Karth of the Ash People, and Rastle of the People of Green Mountain, were such traders. For many years, Karth and Rastle journeyed together during the warm months and then returned home when it became cold, bringing with them trinkets and treasures: stones that glittered, shells from the distant sea, carved figures and soft cloth made from the fur of an animal that, it was said, lived in a part of the world where it never snowed. 

Not only did Karth and Rastle bring home trade items, they also brought stories. Some of their stories were fantastical, others were allegory, and some told of discoveries. One story told of a way to harden mud into a stone. 

Karth and Rastle were not only travelling partners, they also swore kemmering to each other. A child with bright green eyes, like her parent of the flesh, was born to Karth in early winter. When summer travel season began, Rastle strapped the infant to her back and the three of them walked off together. A few months later the child took her first steps, toddling between Karth and Rastle as the wind howled outside their tent, three souls alone in an unexpected summer blizzard. They named her then and there, without the pomp and ceremony that the Ash People usually used to bestow names on their children, after the howling wind and driving snow that accompanied her first steps. They called her Gor. 

Gor, though she spent her early days travelling with her mothers, did not take to that life. When Karth bore another green-eyed daughter a few years later, Gor was happy to stay with her cousins among the Ash People through one summer, and with her cousins among the People of Green Mountain through another summer. 

She did not play like the other children. She was quiet and she spent hours with the elders, fetching and doing small chores, gradually learning the crafts of the charcoal makers and the smelters. As she grew, she became more and more withdrawn, disappearing into the forest for an entire cycle of the moon at a time. Years later, she showed her mothers what she had learned. She had learned the magic that Karth and Rastle had heard of. She had learned to turn mud into stone. Gor’s mud was truly a union of the two peoples. It contained a black powder extracted from the smelter’s slag, a viscous, dark substance that coated the inside of the charcoal ovens after a successful burn, and crushed stone from the river between. 

Gor, with her solitary ways, choose the celibate’s path. She had no children of her own. She chose magic over the pleasures of the flesh. As she grew older, she taught her magic to anyone who would learn. One of her sisters’ children, a girl who had grown up among the People of Green Mountain, wondered why the Ash People wintered in long houses fashioned from the limbs of the rockwood trees, when caves were so much warmer. As she grew, she figured out why: there were no suitable caves in the territory of the Ash People. Gor’s magic gave her an idea. She knew how to cleave a stone into a rough shape from the miners of the People of Green Mountain, and with Gor’s mud, she was able to make something like a cave. It was not very big, and the roof was of rockwood, because she could not figure out how to make the stone support its own weight, but it had four solid walls to block the winter’s wind. The structure gave others ideas. Within a few generations, the Ash People had learned to make sturdy stone shelters with graceful arches to support the roofs. 

It was a great, great, great, great granddaughter of Rastle, a stonesmith, master of a trade that was equally of the Ash People and the People of Green Mountain, who thought of the bridge. Why, she wondered, should we not cross the river throughout the year? Why wait until the coldest of months? And so she began work. She recruited dozens of young backs to help. They built the footings and foundation during the summer using fieldstone found on the banks of the river. They quarried only the best stone, stone without flaw for the arch, and painstakingly dragged the rough blocks of rock back to the site. They built warming huts on the banks of the river. They built the frame to support the bridge’s arch until the capstone could be fitted in place. Finally, after years of preparation, they built the bridge during the bitter cold when the river trickled to a stop. 

The mortar they used was a dark grey. They mixed it in small batches on the bank. They measured the prepared powder into buckets - just enough to coat one or two stones at a time. Care had to be taken with the mortar lest it froze before it set. They used water hot enough to burn, and the rocks were warmed through in the huts, before they were set in place. Once in place, the stones were covered with heated blankets that were changed hourly. 

Come spring, with the full torrent of the spring meltwater roaring through the river’s banks, all of the Ash People and all of the People of Green Mountain, a vast crowd of hundreds, met at the bridge. They stood on their respective sides, feeling ground vibrate under their feet as mist soaked their clothes. The priests and leaders stepped onto the damp stone with mincing steps. The booming of the great rockwood drums voiced the thumping of their terrified heartbeats as they looked down at the frothing water. After the elders had crossed, others tried the bridge, nervous at first and then, when it held, running across with brazen delight. 

The bridge was a great boon to both peoples.


	2. Many generations later

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the miner Kenner falls in love with the smelt-apprentice Lestle.

The cart was overloaded. The axels creaked as it rolled along the road of packed dirt. It was late summer and the track was dry. Occasionally the wind swept through and picked up enough dust to make the two young men in the cart’s traces sputter and cough. An older man walked on the side of the cart and when the dust got bad, he pulled a rag across his nose and mouth. 

The road rolled up and down, winding over and around the foothills of the Green Mountain. When the young men were pulling the cart up a hill, they leaned into their harnesses. On the down hills the young men moved the traces behind the cart and they leaned back, slowing the cart from barreling down the slope, sure to end in wreckage at the bottom. 

“I told you the cart was too heavy,” Kenner said, as he strained against the traces. His hearth-sib, Altu, ignored him as he leaned into the straps. 

They pulled on, sweating in the summer sun. The copper ore in the cart, irregular green lumps about the size of a fist or head, shone with a green that was completely unlike the color of plants. 

They crested the last of the rolling hills. Below, the Old Gor Bridge stretched across the raging high summer waters of the Gorim River. In the distance, the towers of Ashfeld, with spires topped with weathered copper strands twisted to resemble the vast rockwood trees, stood in silhouette against the afternoon sky. It was a few hours until sunset. 

“Let’s get a move on,” Casp, their parent-of-the-flesh, said to the young men. “We want to sell our load tonight, before the market closes. Otherwise, we’ll have to sleep in the cart with the stones.” 

Altu and Kenner wearily undid their traces and moved around behind the cart, ready for the long downhill on their way to the bridge. Altu glanced at Kenner as they reattached the traces. “Are you alright?” Altu said to Kenner. 

“I’ll be fine,” Kenner said gruffly. 

Altu glanced at his brother, seeing the familiar profile. The curve of his overlarge nose, the shaggy hair that fell in his eyes. There was tension around his dark brown eyes. They pushed the cart to set it on its downhill path. “You are going into kemmer, aren’t you?” Altu asked. 

Kenner acknowledged his brother with a swift jerk of his head. 

“It’s early,” Altu said. 

“Sorry,” Kenner said, his voice low. 

Altu shrugged as the cart began to pick up momentum and roll down the hill on its own. “That’ll give me a day or two in the city,” he said. 

“To do what?” Kenner said. His voice was a low growl. 

Altu glanced at him. “The library…” 

“Doesn’t allow miners,” Kenner said. “You know that.” 

Altu grunted. 

“Nor do the kemmer houses,” Kenner said. 

Altu shook his head, “There’s the one on Rastle Street,” he said. “It allows miners.” 

“And perverts,” Kenner said. 

“Does it matter?” Altu replied. 

“He is going to be furious,” Kenner said, glancing at Casp who was walking ahead of the cart, tossing rocks off the track so the road would be smooth for them. 

They came to the bottom of the hill. Kenner undid his trace and moved it around to the front of the cart while Altu stayed behind. They were on the final stretch of flat road before they got to the bridge. 

Old Gor Bridge was a stone arch that crossed the roaring Gorin River. There were other bridges, both wider and newer that crossed the river, but they were over a quarter moon’s walk out of the way. Old Gor was the direct path between Green Mountain and Ashfeld beyond. The rocks of the bridge were obscured with moss and clinging algae. The mortar between the stones was cracked and, on days like today with the roaring of the Gorim River underfoot, the stones shook and quivered. Some day, some day soon perhaps, the river was going to tear the bridge apart. 

Bringing the cart up one side of the arch and down the other was something they had done many times. Altu and Kenner moved as a practiced team. They pushed and pulled and got the cart over the bridge as quickly as possible. Then they refastened the traces to the front and began the last leg of their journey, several miles across the flood plain to the gates of Ashfeld. 

They arrived a few minutes before sunset. Altu, who never thought much about his attire, was suddenly acutely aware of how they looked. They were dressed in sweaty, stained, dusty tunics that were little better than rags. The city-people stopped and stared at them. 

“Mother,” a high-pitched child’s voice cut through the crowd. “Why do those men have such big arms?” 

The child’s parent replied, pitching his voice low, but Altu heard him anyway, “They aren’t men.” 

The Market consisted of a series of stalls, each painted to represent the Guild to which it belonged. The Grocer’s Guild had a splay of atherem berries painted on the front. The Tailor’s Guild was twined with hathem vines. The Smith’s guild was not painted, but instead it was plated with pounded copper plates – a conspicuous display of wealth that made Kenner growl and Altu stare, even though he had seen it a dozen times. The Smelter’s Guild, which was their destination, was painted to resemble the green swirling colors of the mined malachite in the cart. 

Once they came to a stop by the booth, Casp knocked out the pins holding the back gate of the cart in place, and pulled a stone from the load. The Guildmaster who was minding the table came around to talk to Casp. Altu watched the man. He was not the usual representative at the booth. Despite the finery that this man wore, he had the large, powerful arms of someone who had hauled rock for a lifetime. His hands were gnarled and scared. He wore a large eye patch that covered his eye and part of his cheek. This man had worked the furnaces for many years. Altu could respect that. The Guildmaster who usually minded the table was a soft man with soft hands and a sibilant voice that set Altu’s teeth on edge. 

A slight man dressed in smelter’s guild green stood behind the Guildmaster. His assistant, Altu guessed. The assistant only wore one overcoat and was not much different in age than Altu. At least the guildmaster had once worked for a living, Altu thought. That child would not survive a day of real work. 

Altu leaned against the cart, sweaty and dirty from the long day on the road. He wanted dinner, a bath, and a bed, maybe not in that order. He crossed his arms and closed his eyes, hoping the haggling would be over soon.

He must have drifted off to sleep because he woke to Casp shaking his arm. “Altu,” he said. “Where’s Kenner?” 

“What?” Altu said, glancing around. 

“Where’s Kenner?” 

Altu blinked, looking around the Market. After a moment, he spotted Kenner standing to the side of the Smelter’s booth. His brother was staring at the smelt-master’s assistant, his lips parted and his cheeks flushed. Altu groaned. “I’ll get him.” 

But Casp saw him first. “Blessed ash and stone,” he growled. The older man stalked over to Kenner and grabbed him by the arm. “Time to go,” he said roughly. 

Kenner blinked at Casp, looking confused and disoriented. He looked back at the smelt-master’s assistant. 

“Now, Kenner.” 

Kenner let himself be dragged back to the cart. “We have to take this to the smeltyard. Their cart left for the day. Then we are going home.” 

“What?” Altu said, stopping midway through picking up the traces. 

Casp looked at Kenner and then at Altu. “We leave tonight. With an empty cart, we can go fast. We’ll be home by moonrise.” 

“Why?” Altu demanded, turning to Casp. Others in the Market were staring at them and whispering to each other behind their hands. The smelt-master put his arm around his assistant and drew him away. 

Casp shook his head. “Not now,” he said under his breath. “Let’s go.

Kenner picked up his traces, in a daze. As they pulled the cart to the smelter’s courtyard, Kenner said, softly, “His name is Lestle.” 

“I don’t care,” Altu said. 

They did not say another word to each other that night. 

*

In the following days, Altu avoided Kenner. When they were done working in the mines for the day, Altu went fishing or gambled with his friends. He passed a very enjoyable kemmer with a passing trader. When he emerged from seclusion, he found Casp alone in the small cave the three of them had shared for as long as he could remember. Casp was rubbing his hands. Casp’s hands were knobby and bent from years of digging and hauling stone. They pained him constantly. “Where’s Kenner?” Altu said, feeling more charitable than he had in half a moon. 

Casp shook his head. “Haven’t seen him in hours,” he said. 

Late that night, Altu woke as Kenner slipped into his bed, which was next to Altu’s. “Where you’ve been?” Altu asked. 

Kenner rolled on his side. In the dim light, Altu could make out the giant grin that was on Kenner’s face. “He spoke to me!” Kenner said softly, so as not to wake Casp who was snoring on the other side of Altu. 

“Who?” Altu asked. 

“Lestle,” Kenner said. “Tonight, he was fetching water for the guild house. He came out to the public well.” 

“What?” Altu said. 

“He comes out every night. It’s one of his duties. Today he spoke to me!” 

“What?” Altu said again. 

Kenner rolled on his back, letting out a breath. “He said he’s been watching me.”

“You went to Ashfeld?” 

“And back!” Kenner said. 

“Today?” Altu stared at Kenner. 

Kenner let out a long breath of contentment. 

How many times had Kenner done this, Altu wondered. Clearly this was not the first time. “Are you out of your mind?” Altu demanded. 

“He likes my arms,” Kenner said, lifting his arm up to look at the bulky muscles that years of mining had made. 

“Kenner,” Altu said. “What are you doing?” 

Kenner rolled back on his side and wiggled close to Altu. “I don’t know!” he said. “But I am so happy. I never knew I could feel like this.”

Altu could not help but smile with Kenner. “You are crazy,” he said. He studied Kenner. Kenner’s dark, shaggy hair hung haphazardly around his face. Kenner had had scrubbed the dirt off and his cheeks were ruddy. “If that boy’s parent or friends catches you,” he started to say. Kenner would be driven out of Ashfeld, not allowed back. For a miner, not allowed to sell his wares, how could he live? 

Then Altu thought of Casp sleeping behind him. If Casp caught Kenner chasing after an Ashfeld man, Kenner would really be in trouble. 

Kenner flopped back on his back with a happy sigh, not catching on to his brother’s worry. Soon they fell asleep. 

*

Kenner’s happiness was infectious. Altu could not help but be caught up in his brother’s delight. He found himself laughing at his brother’s antics and covering for him when he slipped away every evening to run to Ashfeld and then come back long after the sun had set.

There came a night when Kenner left and did not come home. The next morning, Kenner still had not returned. Altu counted the days and realized that it had been a full moon cycle since Kenner’s last kemmer. That night, when Casp asked about Kenner, Altu said he was in kemmer and was probably off with someone. Altu had a good idea who that someone was and a sense of dread filled his heart. 

A second night passed, and a third. Altu expected to see Kenner return. With any luck, that Lestle would have rejected the dirty miner and Kenner’d be home. He’d stick to his own kind and stop this craziness. A fourth night passed and a fifth. Altu began to worry that something had happened. He was getting ready to go to Casp, tell him what he knew, when a runner came, calling for attention. 

“Casp!” the runner called. “Casp! Where are you?” 

Casp and Altu ran from the cave. The runner was a miner they both knew, a man somewhat older than Altu, who worked a mine in the mountain a two hour walk away. He was bent over, his hands on his knees, gasping.

“Get the man some water,” Casp snapped at Altu. Altu dashed back into the cave. When he came back out, Casp took the water and pressed it on the man. 

The man tried to wave away the cup of water, but Casp insisted. The man gulped the water down. “Casp,” he said when he was done. “It’s your boy.” The man glanced at Altu and then he looked back at Casp. “The other one, with the straight hair.” 

“Kenner?” Casp asked. “What about him?”

“I am sorry, Casp. We found his body, tossed up on the bank of the Gorim. He’s dead, Casp.”

Casp screamed, a wretched, tearing sound with no words. Altu turned away and stared at the expanse of mistbush on the rugged hillside. Kenner was dead. It was his fault. He should have told Casp about Lestle. Casp would have put a stop to it. 

He turned back. The man had his arm around Casp’s shoulders. “My brother’s got him in the cart,” the man was saying to Casp. “We are bringing him home.” 

Altu turned away. 

“Where are you going?” Casp said. 

“To help drag the cart,” Altu said. 

Altu followed the path down the mountain to where it met the road. Then he walked along the road, towards Ashfeld. After an hour, he came upon the cart. 

Without a word, he picked up the empty trace and pulled alongside the other man. “Are you his brother?” the man asked, after a while. 

Altu grunted in agreement. 

“He looks like you.” 

Altu looked at the other miner. He had used the pronoun that was used for a pervert, or one in kemmer, when the organs protruded. “What did you say?” 

The man looked back at him. 

“Oh,” Altu said. The pieces came together 

Altu stopped pulling and jumped up into the cart. “Hey!” the other man protested as Altu stopped pulling. There was a blanket over Kenner’s body. Altu pulled it back. 

Kenner lay on his back, staring at the sky. He was naked, covered in cuts and scrapes. Both of his eyes were blackened. His nose was broken, smashed into his head. His mouth was open, stuffed with something. Between his legs, someone had hacked off the organs. The body was bloated and discolored. Altu turned away with a wordless cry. 

The smell hit him and he had to heave. He leaned over the edge of the cart and emptied his stomach. The spasms didn’t stop when his stomach was empty. 

He remembered the powerfully built guildmaster, with the scarred face. Lestle must be his kemmer-son. The guildmaster must have found them, together. 

By the time he was too exhausted to continue he realized that the cart had started moving. The other man was pulling them both. 

Wordlessly, he jumped down and helped pull. 

*

They buried Kenner in the back of the mine, where Casp’s parent and brother lay, and along with the generations before. 

Winter came. During a blizzard, when the wind was howling, Casp said to Altu, “It’s not your fault, you know.” 

Later that winter, Casp took a fever and died. Altu laid him in the back of the mine, next to Kenner. 

Altu could have moved into a cave with his cousins, but he stayed on his own. Each day he went into the mountain. Each day he brought out nodules of malachite and stacked them by the entrance. Eventually, he would have to find someone to pull the sledge with him. 

The winter ended. The pile of rocks grew larger. It was several trips high now, and he’d have to use the cart. Even so, he could not bring himself to go to the city. 

One day, when he had finished working, he sat outside the cave watching the sun set across the rolling mist-colored hills and drinking a cup of tea. He saw a stranger picking his way up the path. The stranger was dressed in a green robe, with a hood pulled up over his head. He clutched a package to his chest. 

Altu did not stand. He watched the stranger. 

The stranger paused by Altu’s rock pile. Altu waited. “Are you the one called Altu?” the stranger asked. 

“Yes,” he replied. His voice cracked and he realized it had been weeks since he had spoken aloud. 

The man came closer and held out the bundle. The blanket fell away. Inside there was a baby that screamed as the cold spring air touched him. “His name is Cullop,” the stranger said. “Kenner is his father.” 

Altu did not move. What was he going to do with a baby? The stranger pushed his hood back and Altu saw the slight man that had so taken Kenner. Lestle, he remembered. Lestle bent his head and kissed the baby. Then he stepped forward. “Please,” Lestle said. “Take him.” 

“He’s a child of your flesh,” Altu said, at last. 

“But stirred by your Kenner,” Lestle said. “Please, take him. I fear for his life, among my people. Something of our love should survive.” 

Altu stood and took the baby in his arms. The tiny little face was scrunched up with the indignity of being woken as he had been. “There,” Altu said, brushing the baby’s face. The baby turned its face to suck on his finger, quieting almost immediately. It looked up at him with startling green eyes, the color of the stone. Altu smiled. His face felt stiff. It had been a long time since he had smiled. 

By the time he looked up, Lestle was gone.


	3. About thirty years later

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Hadar, a trader from the Sunrise Sea, journeys in search of the fabled Green Mountain and the village beyond.

Hadar walked across the mountainside of scented mist-bush. He was following a path – he hoped it was the right one – to Green Mountain. In all his summers of trading, Hadar had heard of Green Mountain and the spectacular ore that was dug from its heart. He had seen beads and jewelry made from tiny chips of the precious rock. He had once traded a single bead for dozens of iridescent shells. Another time, he had traded a bowl carved from the stuff for an entire month’s supply of food. 

Beyond Green Mountain, it was said, was a great village. This village had streets paved in copper, towers that reached to the sky and wonders beyond description. Hadar had walked for years, travelling from the Sunrise Sea where he had been born, to where he was now. Each summer, he made his way from village to village, bringing stories and wares. Each winter, he settled down with the people where he found himself. Over the years, he had met people beyond counting. He had come to appreciate the ubiquitous breadfruit that did not grow on the coastal plain where he was born. He had learned to tell jokes in more languages than he now remembered. And everywhere he went, he heard of Green Mountain, described almost as if it were a myth, and the wonders of the village beyond. 

For years, he had asked the people he traded the green stone with, where to find Green Mountain. They had had no idea. Two winters ago, he had met an old blind trader who had travelled far in his prime years. The old trader now spent his days buried under blankets like he was pregnant. The blind trader told him of Green Mountain, far towards the sunset. When the snow melted, Hadar turned his back on the sunrise and walked west. 

As he got closer, he got better directions. In the last village, when he asked the way to Green Mountain, they had pointed to a path, but they had also given him a stern warning: steer clear. The green stone, they told them, made the miners and the city-people crazy. It was dangerous. The miners and city people would not give a visitor a three-day’s hospitality. In fact, it was said, that they killed outsiders and each other wantonly. 

Hadar pretended to listen. He left the village and turned south. After half a day, he left the path and circled to the north, fighting his way across the endless expanse of mist-bush. After another day, he crossed a path that had fallen into disuse. There were sticks strewn across dirt and clumpy weeds grew in the middle, their stems unbent by recent passage. Since this path headed in the general westerly direction, he turned to follow it, thinking surely the stories of the inhospitable people of Green Mountain were exaggerated. 

The trail wound up and down, over hills and between steeper mountains. He started noticing side trails joining in. After several days, the trail widened into a cart road. When he noticed a chip of green rock, about the size of his thumb, on the road, he knew for sure he was headed in the right direction. A dozen beads could be carved from this rock that had been causally left. Smiling, he tucked the rock in his pocket. Soon, he found another, and another, and his pockets were bulging. 

Feeling pleased with himself, he was utterly unprepared for what he found next. The smell hit him first, a whiff of putrid air that smelled of death. When he crested the next hill, he saw the body. 

It was a man’s body, bloated and blackened. Bugs crawled across it in sickening waves. 

It was not the first time Hadar had seen death in his travels. He felt sorry for the man who had died out here, alone, without kin to care for his body and lay his soul to rest. He put his pack down. The least he could do for a fellow traveller would be to build him a cairn. 

By the time he finished, the sun was getting low in the sky. He decided it was time to set up camp for the night. There was a small stream that wound its way through the low spot between two hills, not far from the cairn. After he set up his shelter, he made himself a small fire to heat water. While he was waiting for the water to boil, he unloaded the chips of green stone he had picked up along the road and looked at them in the flickering light. 

He was so entranced by their swirling patterns that he did not notice when the hairs on his neck started to rise. Suddenly, a wave of fear hit him. He was aware that he was not alone and that he was in danger. Clutching wildly for his walking stick, he grabbed for it and missed. He floundered backwards, backpedalling away from the fire. 

Hadar came to an abrupt stop as powerful arms grabbed him from behind. There was laughter - two voices – from the arms that held him and from the other side of the fire. 

He was dragged towards the fire and pushed to the ground. Hadar looked up. In the flickering light, he saw two men who had the largest arms and shoulders that he had ever seen. They seemed to be giants, dressed in clothing that was little better than rags. 

One of them spoke. The tone was demanding, but Hadar did not understand. Hadar shook his head. The other one said something, this time shouting louder. Hadar tried to back away, to slide away from the fire. The two pulled out glittering blades. The shear amount of wealth each of those blades represented was at complete odds with their tattered clothes. Hadar froze. 

Hadar stared at the blade, remembering a detail he had seen on the corpse, slits in the skin across the man’s arms. At the time, he had dismissed the cuts because the body had been left to the elements, but now he was not so sure. 

The first one spoke again. 

“I don’t understand,” he said, speaking in the language he had spoken in at the last village. He had not stayed long enough to learn their dialect, but he had been able to make himself understood. 

One of the two giants crouched down and picked up a chip of the green stone. He showed it to his friend and the two again roared with laughter. The giant threw the stone hard, towards Hadar. Hadar flinched, and the stone whizzed past, without hitting him. 

The laughter was gone. One of the giants loomed over Hadar. “Get out,” the giant said, speaking in a heavily accented way but similar enough to the last village that he understood. Hadar got a good look at the man’s face. Green eyes like the color of the stone. Dark, curly hair. Deep lines around his face and eyes. “Go back,” the big man barked. “Tell them Cullop said no one goes to …” The last word was not intelligible. 

“I just wanted to see the Green Mountain!” Hadar squeaked. 

The two looked at each other. They exchanged a few words and then Cullop turned back to Hadar, brandishing a knife. “I am a trader!” Hadar protested, scrambling back. 

Cullop looked at him, his eyes glittering gold from the firelight. Abruptly he stood and his knife disappeared into his clothing. “Killing you is bad luck. Be gone at sunrise, trader,” he said. He pointed back in the direction that Hadar had come from. “No come back.” 

The other man kicked Hadar’s fire, scattering embers and ashes across his camp. The two giants disappeared into the darkness. For several minutes after they were gone, Hadar could hear them talking and laughing. 

Hadar did not sleep. As soon as it was light enough to see, Hadar gathered his scattered things and set out, back the way he had come. He walked past the cairn, wondering if the body had been left as a warning. About a day back there had been a path that headed off to the south and the west. Perhaps that would take him onwards. 

A week later, Hadar came to a dwelling that was on the banks of a roaring river. Buildings of stone were common enough. From the outside it was massive and rectangular. Inside it was a maze of passages and rooms. This one was different from what he was used to. The people used precious metals for such mundane applications as door fasteners. He had seen many things during his years of travelling, but such an open display of wealth was new to him. Even the people were adorned with wealth. Everyone moved in pairs, sworn kemmerings that were partners in all things. They wore elaborate matching bracelets, braided of copper and tin wires. 

These strange people welcomed him, but he found that he had little to offer. No one wanted beads or the other trinkets he carried. When someone saw his little collection of chips of the green rock, they laughed and told him, speaking slowly because he could only work out a few words, that he should cross the river and go north. A village by the name of Ashfeld would want them in trade. 

And so, after a few days, Hadar crossed the river, walking gingerly over a bridge as the river thundered below. He followed the road north and west. This road was wider than he was used to and cobbled in places where the path was low and water collected. The road took him into a forest of towering trees that were twined with vines reaching for the sun, far overhead. He had been walking through prairie for so long, endless miles of grasses and bushes, he had forgotten what it was like to be among trees. The road was used by carters, mostly loaded with trunks of the vast trees, cut into sections twenty to twenty-five feet long. Teams of eight or ten men worked together to drag the trees along the road

Hadar watched, but did not offer a hand. The men pulling these carts were vastly stronger than he was and they seemed to move as one, as if they thought as one. As he walked, he began to notice a peculiarity of the teams. Every team had a pervert. 

Everywhere he had travelled, there were perverts, men who fell into kemmer, and then never came out. In his travels, he had seen perverts as leaders, as shamans, and driven from the community and ostracized. In some places they served in kemmer houses, in others they worked side by side with regular men. 

Among the carters, there was always a female in the team. She was positioned near the center of the group. She pulled with the rest of them, but in little ways that took Hadar a while to notice, the men deferred to her. 

On the second day of walking along the road, when he was beginning to think about stopping for his midday meal, he was hailed by a crew who sat on their logs and they invited him to join them. Pleased to share their company, Hadar accepted a hand up onto the cart and sat among them. 

They spoke to each other in a language that was unfamiliar to Hadar, but one of them turned to him and spoke an accented, halting version of a dialect he had learned the previous winter, asked, “Trader?” 

Hadar nodded in agreement.

“Where are you from?” 

Hadar gestured to the east. “Far from here,” he said. “I have walked for many summers, towards the setting sun. I am from the sunrise land. Each morning, the sun rises out of a vast water that has no side. I have come over mountains and across great plains.” 

The man who asked the question translated his response. Members of the crew shook their head in amazement, or perhaps bafflement. Hadar was used this response. It was hard, even for him, to understand how far he had come. 

“I wanted to see the Green Mountain,” Hadar added, after a moment. “But I was sent away.” 

The men of the crew nodded and mumbled around mouthfuls of food. “Ashfeld is something to see,” the carter said. 

“Ashfeld is Green Mountain?” Hadar asked, confused. 

“No,” the carter laughed. “Green Mountain is just a mountain. Ashfeld is where the...” The carter continued on, using words that Hadar did not know. 

Hadar looked at the people sitting on the logs, eating. His eyes alighted on the pervert. Where the rest of the carters were lean, with wiry muscles, she had more curves. He glanced back at the carter. The carter was watching him. “You are not from around here,” the carter said. “You leave Allona alone.” 

Hadar sat up straighter, surprised and offended. “What?” 

“She is part of the team,” the carter said. “She makes us stronger.” 

Hadar stared at the carter. “She does?” 

“She does,” the carter replied. 

“I have never heard such a thing.” 

The carter shrugged. For a few moments they ate in silence, then he added. “It is said that the people of Ashfeld and the miners were once close. Kemmerings, even,” the carter said. “But things have changed. Now, the miners kill anyone from Ashfeld.” 

“Why?” Hadar asked. 

The man shrugged. “More than a generation ago, a smelt-master killed a miner who kemmered with his son.” 

Hadar had been through feuds on this travels, before. “And now the miners kill those from Ashfeld,” he said. 

“Stupid of them,” the man said. “Without Ashfeld to buy their ore, they have nothing.” 

“What of Ashfeld?” Hadar asked. 

The man shrugged. “Who can blame them for seeking justice?”

Hadar stared at his pack, which was resting across his feet. 

The carter added, “The miners are idiots. They tore down the old bridge and killed the smelt-master’s son years ago. Now they got a long walk down to the south bridge, and then a long walk back north to get the ore to Ashfeld. I see maybe one cart a month, carrying ore. They are starving up on that mountain.” 

Hadar fingered the chips of green rock in his pocket, understanding the comment that was said to him, back in the last village. 

“Such a waste,” Hadar said. 

The man looked away. “The miners are ungrateful brutes.” 

After eating, Hadar continued on. He walked faster than the carts and he left the crew he had eaten with behind. That night, he camped in the forest. The next day he kept walking. 

The road came out of the forest. Ahead was a most puzzling shape. Trees, as they reached to the sky, had jagged, uneven edges. This structure had straight lines. In his experience, straight lines were not made by nature. Straight lines were made by men. Surely this was too large to be made by men? 

By as he got closer he saw that it was, in fact the largest village he had ever seen. A wall, as tall as two men, surrounded dozens of holdings, each with towers. This must be Ashfeld. It was on the edge of a forest, with rolling hills that stretched out in the distance. He could catch a glimpse of a ferocious river, perhaps the same river he had crossed south of here. Beyond the city, a column of smoke climbed to the sky. 

There was a fork in the road. One path led towards the smoke and another towards the village. He hesitated at the crossroads, and while he was there, a cart came by, and turned towards the smoke. Hadar took the other path. 

Ashfeld, for all of its grandiose silhouette, seemed sad. Doors had pealing paint. The metal fasteners he had seen in the last village were missing. He could see places where they had once been. Now all that remained were the holes where screws had held them in place. 

Hadar wandered, feeling lost. He had never been in a place like this. There were so many structures separated by winding alleys and cart-ways. The stonework in the buildings were carved with intricate geometric patterns. The people bustled by, bumping into him and walking on. They spoke rapidly in the same language the carters had used. He had begun to pick up some of the words of this language but the people spoke so fast. 

In other villages, he presented himself to the leader and asked for hospitality. As a trader, he was always greeted warmly. Here, he could not figure out how to find the leader and even if he did, he did not think his status as a trader would get him far. There were so many traders bustling through the streets, eyeing each other with suspicion. When there was just an hour or two until sunset and he considered leaving the city. He could camp by the river and fish for dinner. He was trying to find the gate to get out when he passed a place with an open door. The sound of laughter and singing emerged and he looked in through the door. 

There was large common room, with rows of tables, filled with men, eating and drinking. The men were dressed clothes cut from brightly dyed cloth and expensive weaves. He hesitated in the door. The food smelled good and he had had nothing to eat in many hours. Youngsters dashed among the men, carrying trays of food and drink. Hadar tried to figure out how to get one of them to give him something but they walked by, ignoring his stumbling questions. 

He was saved when a man dressed in a green robe approached him. The robe made the man’s green eyes shine. “Hello, stranger,” the man greeted him. 

Hadar did a double-take. Although this man was not as muscular as the man who had assaulted him on the trail, it was the same face with the same eyes. Startled, Hadar took a step back. “What do you want?” he asked. 

The man widened his eyes at Hadar’s reaction and held his hands up. The man’s fingers glittered with bronze rings, inset with chips of the green stone. 

Now that Hadar got a second glance, it was clear that this was not the miner who had called himself Cullop. This man did not have the deep lines that had cast dancing shadows across Cullop’s face. This man had a softness to him. 

“Are we so diminished that we can not offer a trader a drink? You are a trader?” the man said. “Come, sit with me, friend. Tell us of your travels.” 

Hadar let himself be led to a table that was full of men in green robes. They handed him a brass mug full of some fragrant drink and pushed a bowl of fish stew in front of him. “I am Rostac,” the man said, “Of the smelter’s guild.” 

“I am Hadar,” Hadar offered. 

No further words were exchanged until the food was gone. Eventually, Rostac asked, “Where are you from?” 

“I was born far from here, where the land ends and the sun sets into a vast water that has no other side,” Hadar said. 

“I have never heard of such a place!” Rostac said. “It must be very, very far away.” 

“I have been travelling for many summers,” Rostac said. “And for many of those summers, I have heard of the Green Mountain and the village beyond.” 

“Ah,” Rostac said. “Did you hear that, boys? Hadar has come to see the wonders of Ashfeld.” 

They glanced at each other. 

Hadar frowned. There was a tension in the group that was making him nervous. “I have never seen such a place as this,” Hadar offered. “How many men live here? Ten hundred? Twice that?” When no one responded Hadar said, “Beautiful buildings.” 

Another of the green robed men at the table grumbled. Rostac turned to Hadar. “You’ll have to excuse my friend. Ashfeld is not what it was.” 

“What do you mean?” Hadar replied. 

The smelters looked at one another. After a while, Rostac spoke. “For as long as anyone can remember, there was a bridge that crossed the Gorim river, just to the east of here. Miners brought the green stone to Ashfeld to trade for the goods of the forest - food, cloth made from the hathem vines, and wood from the rockwood trees – and for metals that we smelted and shaped. The miners were uncouth, but the ore they brought, the green malachite, was the base of all we did. We smelted it into the metals and we used the residue from the smelting to make the cement that binds the stones together. 

Hadar struggled to follow the words, but Rostac slowed his speech down and Hadar understood most of what was said. 

“There was a smelt-apprentice named Lestle. When he was just coming into kemmer, he was cornered by a miner, who abducted him and abused him. The smelt-master found them and killed the miner, but it was too late, Lestle was pregnant. When the miners found out, they wanted the baby for themselves, but Lestle refused. The miners killed him, taking down the old Gor Bridge in the process. 

“Now they trade their stone with other villages, on their side of the Gorim, and we scavenge for what we can get.”

Rostac pushed his bowl away and looked at Hadar. “Not much to see here anymore.” 

Hadar looked at Rostac and then at the others at the table. After hearing about Green Mountain and the village beyond for so many years, after looking forward to seeing an entire mountain made of the shimmering green stone and the fabled riches of the village, the reality was sad beyond words. Whatever they had been, even if the stories had been exaggerated, they were not any of those things anymore. Fractured by the loss of the bridge, they had destroyed their own greatness. 

Rostac offered Hadar the hospitality of the Smelter’s Guild, but the next day he took his leave and continued walking west. Perhaps, someday, he would see the sun set into the sea.


	4. Many years later

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Karis builds a bridge that does not fall.

It was profoundly cold, cold enough that the Gorim River had been stilled and no water flowed through its rocky banks. Its headwaters had frozen far upstream at the Great Ice, robbing the river of its power. During the summer, the river roared through its banks, but for the bright, bitter winter, the river was a silent, snow-filled gully that wound its way across the windswept land. 

For many years, the winter banks of the river near Ashfeld had been quiet. This year was different. A dozen apprentice stonemasons worked in the frigid weather, swarming across a wooden structure that spanned the banks of the river. Along the banks, rows of stone blocks lay in orderly ranks. A few journey-masons put the final boards on warming huts while others inventoried gleaming brass cauldrons big enough to cook a child, wooden barrels of cement mix and massive piles of firewood. 

Karis, master stone-mason, watched from the top of a snowdrift. His arms were folded and his hands were tucked in his armpits. Tembla, an ashmaster and Karis’s kemmering, was climbing up the drift, his snowshoes leaving ankle-deep gullies that the wind quickly erased. Karis turned his attention to Tembla and watched him fondly, admiring his easy strides through the soft snow. 

Years and years before, in the depths of winter, two old men had met at the river. After years of fueling the hate, Cullop of the miners and Rostac of the smelters had faced each other for the first time. Each man had seen his own face on the other. In an instant, they had realized that they were brothers of the womb, separated at birth. When they had compared the stories they had learned as children, they understood that they had been lied to. They had resolved to spend the rest of their days bringing their people back together, instead of driving them further into ruin. When they had returned to their people and told them what they had learned, their people had cast them out. Cullup of the miners and Rostac of Ashfeld had died in the same blizzard, named as traitors to the victims of the feud. 

In the days after Cullop’s and Rostac’s deaths, their children of the flesh met in secret and made a pact to continue that which their parents had died for. As the years passed, the cousins shared kemmering with each other and another generation was born. Where the adults were circumspect, remembering the deaths of their parents, the children were open. They called the feud a mistake. 

Karis had grown up among the miners but he was not one of them. He came from a line of stonemasons who opened mines into Green Mountain and shored up the tunnels from collapse. When he had met Tembla, a chance meeting when fishing in the Gorim, he had been utterly taken. On a whim that they had never had cause to regret, they had sworn kemmering to each other with the roar of the river and the smell of fish in the background. 

As Karis came to know his partner, a charcoal maker from Ashfeld, he learned that Tembla called both Cullop and Rostac grandfather. Karis had never given the feud much thought. He figured the stories of Ashfeld were probably overblown. When he went home and told his parent-of-the-flesh that he had sworn kemmering to a charcoal-maker, Karis had been driven from the miners’s camp. He had gone to live with Tembla, where a strong back was always welcome. 

When Tembla’s kin had asked him to lead a stone-masonry project, he had laughed. What could he build for them? New ovens for their charcoal? He had already repaired most of them. No, they told him, a bridge. He should rebuild Old Gor bridge. 

At first Karis had said no but when Tembla had asked him again, he changed his mind. He would build a bridge for Tembla, a structure that would last generations. 

Karis spent years harvesting the blocks of stone, selecting each for its beauty and perfection, discarding any with a crack or flaw. He carved each stone himself, not leaving the work to apprentices. He shaped each piece so it fit smoothly with its neighbor. He collected the ingredients to make the cement, making sure each part of the ancient formula was of the highest quality: tar from the charcoal ovens, black crystals of the copper slag and sand from the river between. 

Now, with each stone laid out in order on the banks of the river, with barrels of mixed cement, with warming huts to heat the stone and cement before they are put in place, he was finally ready to begin construction. 

Tembla came up beside him and turned to look down at the young workers. Karis put his arm around his kemmering. 

“Karis,” Tembla greeted him with a smile. 

“Tembla,” Karis replied. “Are you ready to build a bridge?” 

“Let’s build a bridge,” Tembla replied. 

With all of the preparation work that Karis had done over the years, the work proceeded quickly. Each day they were able to set another row of stone in place. Finally, all that remained was the last row, the great wedge of the keystone of the arch. Karis had carved the keystone with the outline of Green Mountain and a towering rockwood tree. Inset in the carving, he had set chips of the astoundingly green malachite as the leaves of the tree and twisted bronze wire as the trunk. No one had ever seen such artistry. 

On the morning of the day before they were to put the keystone in place, Karis woke to find that Tembla was not next to him in bed. That was not unusual. Tembla often woke before the sun rose over the eastern mountains and went to watch the sun rise. Karis took his time getting dressed. Today was to be a rest day. By the time the sun was a full handspan over the horizon and Tembla had not yet returned, Karis began to get worried. 

Pulling on his heavy work-coat, Karis went out into the bright sunshine and walked towards the river. It was quiet. The hairs on the back of his neck started to rise. Something was wrong. 

He found Tembla face down in a pool of red-soaked snow. His body was still warm. 

Karis gathered him in his arms and howled. 

The workers, many of them Tembla’s kin, came running. 

Later, when his body had been washed and laid out, one of Tembla’s brothers came to him. “He was killed by the miners. As a warning,” the brother said. 

Karis stared into space. “The bridge is for him. It will be finished.” 

The brother had put a hand on Karis’s shoulder. Karis looked up into green eyes that were so like Tembla’s, he started to cry. “We’ll finish it. No one will forget him.” 

*

On a frigid day, the first full moon after midwinter, all of the people of Ashfeld and all of the miners, came together to line the banks of the Gorim river. Thousands of souls stood shoulder to shoulder. 

It was about a quarter moon after Tembla had died. 

Tembla’s family could have demanded retribution, but they had not. Let this be the last death, they had said. 

Karis’s parent-of-the-flesh had come to see him on the day after Tembla’s death and Karis had greeted him as a child greets a parent. His parent had told Karis exactly who was to blame. He had wanted Karis to avenge Tembla’s death. It is what a man would do, he had told Karis, if a man truly loved his kemmering. Karis had loved Tembla, but he would not avenged him. Let this be the last death, he had said. 

Instead, Karis had spoken to the priests of Ashfeld and the priests of the mountain people. “Help me,” he had begged. “May this be the last death.” 

And so, for the first time in a long time the priests of Ashfeld and the priests of the mountain people had come together. They sent out word and called for everyone, old and young, mountain man and village man, to meet at the bridge at sunrise. 

The great carved keystone was in place on the bridge, ready to be slid into place. The barrel of dry cement was waiting. The slurry, sickening in its smell, was being kept warm over the fires. Karis had prepared it himself, refusing all help that was offered. 

The priests stood on the bridge. One shouted, “People of the Green Mountain!” 

Another shouted, “People of Ashfeld!” 

“Too many of us have died.” 

“Too many of us have killed.” 

“Today, the feud between our people are over.” 

“Today, with blood and bone, we will again connect our peoples. 

Karis, who stood by the slurry shouted, “This bridge,” he said, “was to be a gift for my beloved Tembla. Instead it will be his gift to us.” He took a knife from his belt and slid it across his palm. He his hand over the cauldron and let his blood trickle in. “I add my blood to his.” He turned to the person next to him and offered the man his knife. “Will you add yours?” 

Karis stepped back and wrapped a cloth around his hand to staunch the blood. He watched as the people of Ashfeld and the Mountain people, came up, slowly at first and then in increasing numbers, to add blood to the cauldron. Hours went by and it was time. The journeymen came forward and added the cement to the slurry. The apprentices hauled the mixture up to the bridge. Karis, with his trowel, carefully coated the keystone with a layer of red cement. When he was ready, he directed the teams, and the keystone was lowered into place. 

*

Tembla’s Bridge stood for many years after the people had forgotten who Tembla was.


End file.
